


To Be a Hiro

by likestoimagine



Series: That one AU where Tadashi is totally alive [1]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alive!Tadashi, Gen, That one AU, but he's in a coma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 04:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2799188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likestoimagine/pseuds/likestoimagine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things change for Hiro when his brother is pulled out of fire, hardly breathing. (He may be alive, but it's almost the same as being dead.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be a Hiro

 

Sometimes, Hiro thinks that he and Tadashi should really switch names - at the very least, “Hero” has always applied to Tadashi more so than himself, though his name of loyalty still fits, all the same.

  

That isn’t really crossing Hiro’s mind when Tadashi chooses to race _into_ the burning inferno of a science exhibition to try and find his teacher, regardless of his distinct lack of training or protective gear. That isn’t what he’s thinking when they pull him out of the fire, burned bright red where he’s not stained with soot, ashy and barely breathing, but somehow (only just) alive.

 

(Hiro’s not really thinking of much, beyond desperate calls for his brother to come back, don’t leave, he doesn’t want to lose his _brotherprotectorbestfriendfamily_ , doesn’t know what he’ll do if Tadashi dies, if their family shrinks from three to two.)

  

When Tadashi is carted over to an ambulance, when they get the news that he’s in a coma and might never wake up, when Hiro sits by his brother and he’s wrapped like a mummy and hooked up to just about every machine in the hospital? _That’s_ when Hiro’s big (numbed) brain finally grasps at the darkness for a single thought: he can’t lose his brother, not again.

 

oOoOo

 

Hiro kind of goes to school, in that he registers for classes and arrives on campus but doesn’t actually set foot in a classroom for the next two weeks. He’d be perfectly fine working at home, but at least this way Aunt Cass doesn’t worry as much, thinking he’s at least adjusting to his school schedule well, if nothing else.

 

He commandeers Tadashi’s lab space for the time being, since everything is basically set up like it would be at home anyways, and more or less shuts himself off from the world. Hiro suspects that they’re letting him do this out of pity more than anything.

 

His only contact is when Honey Lemon and Wasabi peek through the door with questions about his health and a hot meal (both of which he ignores until they’ve long gone and the food has turned cold), when Fred tries to lure him out with the promise of snacks or comics or anything, when GoGo briskly raps her knuckles on the door and says that Tadashi would want him to take care of himself.

 

…Tadashi can’t say as much to him, because he’s still in a coma and might never wake up. Hiro still talks to his brother though - mostly about his newest project, since there hasn’t really been much else in his hermit life of note.

 

Tadashi is the only one who gets to hear about his new invention, just like always - it’s designed for him after all (or, it will be once the idea actually makes it way off paper), and Hiro dreams that talking of his next idea - his next life changing invention - will revive Tadashi’s proud smile and grinning eyes, chase the death-like stillness away.

 

He remains motionless though, and yet another day passes. Hiro wonders if his brother will ever wake, and it gets harder and harder every day to believe that he’s still alive. (Tadashi never gave up on him, though, so Hiro will never give up on Tadashi. That’s all he can really do.)

 

_Sometimes the only pay-off_

_for having any faith…_

 

oOoOo

 

Even though Hiro has taken temporary charge of his big brother’s lab space, it’s still technically Tadashi’s. If he doesn’t wake by the end of the school year, though…

 

Well, he has to be awake by then. He has to.

 

Still, for now it’s Hiro’s lab space, even if its too quiet to be a proper lab right now - his brother isn’t just a step away soldering a wire to a circuit board, Mochi isn’t wandering in to investigate (sit on) his next project, there’s no movement now that Hiro’s stopped working…

 

The quiet sometimes chills Hiro, when he thinks of what could have happened, had things been just a little different. He could be stuck in this suffocating silence, knowing that his brother would never again work by his side rather than simply fearing it, left in a too-big room (whether it be their lab or their bedroom) with nowhere to escape.

 

Now, though, its a small blessing, that no one is around to worry over a Hiro who is dejectedly facing his twentieth failure in a row - because even if he’s a genius, he’s always worked better when he has a brother to soundboard ideas off of, when he’s not at half power because inferno heat and the scent of burnt flesh stains his dreamscapes with fire and leave him gasping for air in a smokeless room.

 

Hiro sighs and rubs at his face tiredly, getting up so that he can work on attempt number twenty one of his newest project.

 

He makes it in about three steps after rising from his chair before he stubs his toe on a stray toolbox. Another two hops and a loud “Ow!” later, and there’s a soft whirring at the back of the lab.

 

Hiro turns around and sees the fluffy marshmallow of a robot that his brother had recently completed. It’s standing in its charging port, staring at Hiro with a tilt to its head that might have looked like curiosity on a human.

 

It gives him a circular wave, and says, “Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion.”

 

Life gets a bit more complicated after that.

 

oOoOo

 

If there’s anything to be said about finding out that your tech has been stolen by an _evil masked villain_ of all things, it’s that it can sure get you out a funk real quick.

 

At least, thats what Hiro picks up from the whole thing, as he races from SFIT to the garage so that he can start working on some improvements to Baymax. Because Baymax is amazing and deceivingly high tech despite his simple exterior, but he’s also demonstrated clearly that he’s not exactly equipped to deal with tech-stealing bad guys. Or long nights. Or moving at a speed faster than ‘hobble’, really.

 

(Seriously, Baymax can carry a thousand pounds no problem but can’t punch down a door? For all that Tadashi wa - is an awesome older brother, he can sometimes be so boring when it comes to his inventions.)

 

Its a good thing he has Hiro to help make his robot more awesome.

 

Also a good thing is the fact that Hiro has been working on armor for the past month now, even if it was originally for Tadashi.

 

…Well, he’d been having problems with some of the features earlier, but now that he’s working in a larger scale, it should be easier to figure out where things are going wrong. And, Hiro knows that he’s going to succeed now, because this is the clearest his mind has been since the fire. He has an immediate goal in sight, he has to defeat the man who hurt Tadashi and stole his microbots, and he’s definitely not letting go of that motivation.

 

(He doesn’t think about how helping Tadashi _isn’t_ an immediate goal anymore, because there’s nothing he can do when his brother is trapped in his own darkness, alive more or less in name only. He doesn’t want to think about how much harder it gets, day by day, to not give up on his older brother, his beacon of strength who has never given up on him. Hiro is not like his brother, but maybe now he can at least make some progress and get a little better.)

 

_…is when its tested again and again_

_every day_

 

oOoOo

 

It’s one thing to say that they’re all getting upgraded - that they'll become _way more -_  after the events at the pier, but its another thing to actually do it. For one thing, they do need some kind of combat potential (“SUPERPOWERS!” Fred shouts with his fists pumped to the air) that will be both powerful and functional.

 

Hiro can’t imagine how much harder it would be for a group that wasn’t the Nerd Lab. Even with the preexisting tech available for adaptation, it still takes two weeks to make everything suit-functional, and another week besides to adapt to moving and fighting in them. It would have taken forever if they had to start from scratch.

 

(Fred is the only exception to this, but then he’s also the only one of them who is able to move naturally in bulky, shock-absorbing suits, so its really only a matter of improving his mobility and arming him in some way. Easy enough, especially since he’s already expressed interest in breathing fire.)

 

GoGo’s outfit is probably the simplest to work on, for the sheer fact that mechanical engineering and robotics work together so beautifully. The biggest issue is really just getting the wheels compact enough for skates, and that problem is alleviated by putting them on the side of rather than under the shoe. Balance is a little tricky, but then GoGo rediscovers her center of gravity and is off like a shooting star.

 

Wasabi’s is a little harder to manage, since his lasers aren’t actually self contained yet and it’d be a bit too difficult to fight with what can be summed up as a high tech cheese slicer. Once they figure out how to shape the plasma into a blade though, its as easy as installing it plus an on/off switch into a pair of gauntlets. One fight with a tennis ball launcher later, and Wasabi is able to turn the daggers on at a whim.

 

Honey Lemon’s ensemble is both the easiest and the hardest. Easiest, because she literally has all that she needs to make everything work, and hardest because they need to figure out a way to fit an entire chem lab into a portable container that’s not going to explode or poison them all. It would have been entirely unpractical, if it wasn't for the combination of Hiro’s tech-shrinking gift and Honey’s encyclopedic knowledge/mad typing skills finally culminating in an extremely durable, leak-proof mechanical purse. Hiro is still not entirely sure how she uses it so well, but, if it works it works.

 

And, together with Baymax (newly armed with a _rocket punch and wings_ , how awesome is that?), they are going to _wreck_ things. Especially for the arbitrarily dubbed Yokai.

 

(It was either that or Kabuki Man, and Hiro isn’t particularly fond of the Kabuki moniker after the police station fiasco).

 

oOoOo

 

When Yokai’s mask comes off and reveals the harsh, anger-lined face of Professor Robert Callaghan, time seems to stop. Its too unreal, that this kind, grandfatherly professor is the same guy who tried to crush them all with a shipping container, who followed them in a relentless car chase that ended with them nearly drowning, who is even now trying to kill them without a single drop of remorse…

  

This couldn’t possibly be the kind professor who invited Hiro to the SFIT with a proud smile and high expectations. This couldn’t be the man that Tadashi nearly died for. He couldn’t be the man who escaped the fire unscathed and left his brother to die in the light of the burning exhibition.

 

Except, he is. He’s a nightmare made real, a traitor unmasked, a rumble rough as the island wreckage that snaps, “That was HIS mistake!” without a care for the studentfriendbrotherTADASHI _who ended up in the hospital trying to save him_.

 

It was his mistake.

 

_It was his mistake._

 

_Just a mistake,_ that nearly took his brother from him? That landed Tadashi - with flames seared into his face, with soot and ash and smoke in his lungs and blood nearly boiled - in a burned death-sleep, _that might still take his only brother away from him?_

 

No. NO. Tadashi’s heart isn’t a mistake, his choice isn’t a mistake. Tadashi’s life isn’t a mistake. The mistake is that Callaghan didn’t die in the fire that day.

 

Hiro is going to _fix that_.

 

oOoOo

 

Hiro sees red - redred _red_ like hellfire burning his brother’s breath away, red like the flame-branded skin of a body in a hospital bed, red like the tear-streaks staining a Kabuki mask demonic, red like a data chip made for fighting instead of helping.

 

Hiro sees red, and it’s the empty eyes of a healer without its smiling green heart.

 

Hiro sees red, until its yellow, slicing through the air to stop a rocket fist from launching. He sees red until its blue tackling the destroyer from behind, until it’s yellow and blue and green flung like dolls to the side trying to stop a rampaging robot, until it’s pink standing in front of a giant, with shuddering breaths and shaking hands to an armored heart.

 

Hiro sees red, until its the bright sky-blue that his brother can’t see.

 

Hiro sees red, redredred bleeding into a draining darkness leaving him empty and tired and cracked like fractured glass. He sees red until it _changes_ to a play of light and shadow finishing with burnished gold, and his big brother is standing showered in sunlight with eyes even brighter because _wait ’til his brother sees this!_ and his invention is going to help _so many people_.

 

Hiro sees red, except it’s joy in a tired smile.

 

Hiro sees red, and then it’s tears washing rage and anguish and despair away. It’s Baymax-pure-white standing strong and caring without judgement, it’s his big brother glowing with life once again. It’s yellow-nee-GoGo with a hug and forgiveness, green-who-is-Wasabi with good cheer, blue-suited-Fred with reassurance, and it’s pink-sweet-as-Honey with the reason to move forwards. It’s the team back together to do things right this time.

 

Hiro sees red, until he sees Tadashi.

 

oOoOo

 

For all that he loves his brother, Hiro doesn’t always understand him. How Tadashi can always find Hiro when he himself doesn’t know where he’s going to end up. Why Tadashi’s always been convinced that Hiro was meant to change the world, when the world pretty clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

 

…How he could run forwards into the fiery night when his little brother was right behind him, begging him to stay.

 

Hiro has spent the last few months wondering (fearing) just _why_? Why did Tadashi have to go? Why was Professor Callaghan so important? …Was the teacher more important to Tadashi than his little brother?

 

All that changes, the minute that Baymax faces the swirling portal, about to eat itself up, and says, “My sensors are picking up signs of life, coming from in there”.

 

Because now? Hiro is standing in Tadashi’s place.

 

He’s at the edge of a precipice, there’s only time for a breath and a choice. He can stay, keep himself safe, be sure that he’ll be alive to see his brother wake… or, he can take a leap and try to save one more life, find the single spark of life that is sputtering in the void, give another chance to a sleeping woman who used to have the world ahead of her.

 

(Tadashi only had time for a breath and a choice - he could stay, reassure his brother, be sure they’d both stay safe… or, he could try to save one more life, find a professor in an inferno who has helped so many people and who he thought could help so many more)

 

For the first time, Hiro sees exactly what Tadashi sees, and he knows that someone has to help.

 

(And, if he has friends and family and the future in front of him that could all vanish into smoke, thats even more the reason - because he has this to lose, but Abigail has all this to gain, except she can only reach for it if Hiro makes the first jump)

 

Hiro’s been so blessed in his life, just as Tadashi has. The least he can do is try to pay it forward, if there’s even a chance.

 

He thinks maybe this is what a Hero is (and maybe this is what it is to be a Hiro).

 

oOoOo

 

There are two scant weeks to deal with the aftermath (look for loose microbots, patch up wounds, don’t think about how all thats left of Baymax is a single red glove) and then its time for the next quarter.

 

He gets to keep Tadashi’s lab - though its more like the Hamada lab now - and officially moves all of his equipment in. Boxes of wires and parts, hammers and fine-tipped etching tools, sheafs of blueprints and notebook paper, they all find their way into the lab. They make it a little more cluttered, but they also make it a little more home.

 

The only piece that’s non-functional is an oversized robotic glove, rested on a shelf by the windowsill.

 

(That’s what Hiro thinks until he gives it a bittersweet fist bump, then there’s a flash of green hidden in red-and-grey, and it ends up the fist held the best function of all.)

 

Between him and GoGo working on the skeleton with help from frantically dug up blueprints, thermoses of tea from Honey Lemon, bento boxes from Wasabi, and ‘mysteriously acquired’ materials that obviously aren’t from Fred, not at all, Baymax’s body is built in a little over a week.

 

Baymax, though, is built to last a lifetime

 

oOoOo

 

For the first time in months, Tadashi stirs.

 

oOoOo

 

When Tadashi wakes, the first thing he sees is his little brother, curled up as close as he can get while sitting on the hospital chair rather than on his cot. Hiro's hand is curled around his own and pulled close to his heart, making Tadashi feel fondly warm as he realizes that Hiro hasn’t wanted to reveal that vulnerable kind of affection in quite some time. Baymax is standing quietly to the side, which he hopes means that the healthcare companion has been helping Hiro while he himself has been unable to.

 

Tadashi smiles and gives Hiro’s hand a small squeeze - apparently enough to wake up his brother.

 

A mop of fluffy, black hair stirs, and bleary brown eyes meet a matching gaze.

 

Hiro seems to still be in a daze, so Tadashi murmurs a quiet, “Hey, Knucklehead” at him and waits to see his reaction.

 

He underestimates how loud it would be, as Hiro gleefully shouts, “Tadashi!” and practically flies from his chair, ready to tackle his big brother until he visibly stops himself and realizes that it might not be the best idea, since said big brother is hooked up to any number of pipes and needles that probably shouldn’t be jostled.

 

Hiro is still bouncing on his heels, though, and his gap-toothed grin tugs at Tadashi match it, tooth for tooth.

 

Aunt Cass walks in at about this moment, and nearly drops the take-out tray she’s holding.

 

It gets a lot louder after that, despite Baymax standing dissonantly serene in the resulting chaos (absolutely no one minds).

 


End file.
